Telling the Good News from Day to Day
1. We should put forth the greatest efforts to do what during this “short period of time”?
A “SHORT period of time” remains before the universal war of Armageddon. During this period the opportunity offers itself to bring as many people of good will as possible into the saved condition that Jehovah God now provides. We need to put forth the greatest efforts possible before the period expires to inform the people everywhere that their everlasting salvation can come only from Jehovah the great Savior. It depends mainly upon him. Why?
2, 3. Why must Jehovah be made known and who appreciate that he is very much to be praised?
2 “For Jehovah is great and very much to be praised. He is to be feared more than all other gods. For all the gods of the peoples are worthless gods. But as for Jehovah, he has made the very heavens. Dignity and splendor are before him, strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.”—Ps. 96:4-6, NW.
3 As in the apostle Paul’s days, so today: Jehovah is “the unknown God” to the vast majority of earth’s population. (Acts 17:23) But he deserves to be known by all. He must be made known, if there is to be any salvation. He will be made known to all alive. By his very existence he swears to this: “As I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of Jehovah.” (Num. 14:20, NW) Those who refuse to know him now in friendship will be obliged to know his destructive power at Armageddon. Speaking of that final war, he declares: “I will magnify myself, and sanctify myself, and I will make myself known in the eyes of many nations; and they shall know that I am Jehovah.” (Ezek. 38:23, AS) This will fill out the knowledge of him that his witnesses on earth have been trying hard to give to the people during all this generation. More and more these witnesses are learning to know how great Jehovah is. With their own growth in knowledge they appreciate more that He is very much to be praised. There is everything about him to be praised. As there is every reason to condemn Satan the Devil the god of this system of things, there is every reason to praise Jehovah the God of the new world.
4, 5. (a) Whom on earth do the people fear? (b) Why is it urgent to awaken the people to the fear of Jehovah?
4 Today everywhere on earth there exists fear in the hearts of the people. But this fear is not mixed with the fear of Jehovah. Besides fearing the things they discern as about to come upon the earth, they fear their visible gods, the mighty ones that they idolize in politics, in business, in militarism and in popular religion. These deified ones instill fear of themselves into the hearts of the populace to keep themselves prominent and in the power to control. To these the people ascribe the power and works and adoration that belong only to the one living and true God, Jehovah. The fear that the people have toward these earthly gods is merely a fear of awesome men, mere human creatures who will die. But Jehovah is to be “feared more than all other gods.” As he once executed judgment on all the false gods of Egypt, so he is now judging these earthly gods, to the point of exposing their utter inability and falsity. “God standeth in the congregation of God; he judgeth among the gods.” To the mighty, adored ones in Christendom who profess to be sons of the God of heaven he directs this message: “I said, Ye are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High. Nevertheless ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.”—Ps. 82:1, 6, 7, AS; John 10:34, 35.
5 Jehovah is more to be feared than these mortal gods on earth. These gods can violently kill only one’s human body, but Jehovah is able to destroy one’s soul as well as body in everlasting death, from which there is no resurrection of the dead. (Matt. 10:28) How urgent it is to awaken the fear of Jehovah among those who want life!
6. Who are the “worthless gods” of the people, and why are they “worthless”?
6 But there are also creatures of imagination whom the peoples of earth put into the unseen world, the realm of invisibility, and whom they fear with mortal dread and to whom they raise idol images. Little do the people realize that they are worshiping demons who take to themselves the worship that the people blindly offer. The apostle Paul, who identified the unknown God for the pagan philosophers, said concerning their idols: “What, then, am I to say? That what is sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No; but I say that the things which the nations sacrifice they sacrifice to demons, and not to God, and I do not want you to become sharers with the demons.” (1 Cor. 10:19, 20, NW) These gods are “worthless gods.” Idol images cannot save, neither can the demons that they represent do so. With Satan their ruler these demons have great anger against the true God and his people on earth. Determined to let Jehovah God save nothing on earth, they are leading all the kings of this inhabited earth against God at Armageddon, to their destruction. It spells death, annihilation, therefore, to listen to demon-inspired propaganda. (Rev. 16:13-16) Their man-made idols cannot rescue their worshipers from that annihilation. Instead of being of real religious benefit to strengthen man’s belief in what is true, the idols do harm. They blind the nations and peoples to Jehovah God and his kingdom, the exclusive source of eternal salvation. “Worthless gods,” indeed!
7. What visibly gives evidence that dignity and splendor are before Jehovah, and strength and beauty in his sanctuary?
7 Testifying to the fact that Jehovah is God are the heavens. He made them by his power and in his wisdom. His unsearchable mind arranged for all the glory of the visible heavens and their order and harmony. Only one mind could organize all this—His mind. Immeasurably far up above those heavens the Most High God exercises his universal sovereignty. If those visible heavens beneath are so impressive and splendid and beautiful to us, what dignity and splendor there must be all about Jehovah himself in the spiritual heavens! What strength and beauty there must be in that most holy place where he personally dwells! This we can only weakly imagine on the basis of the things visible, although we cannot actually know how glorious he himself is, for “no man has seen God at any time,” no man has seen his figure, and he himself decrees: “No man may see me and yet live.” (John 1:18; 5:37 and Ex. 33:20, NW) The artificial glory and stateliness of earthly gods fade away in comparison. How foolish, then, for one to demand to see Jehovah actually before one would believe in him! Believe the testimony of his creative works. Believe the true witness of his written Word, the sacred Bible.
8. In the face of the pressing need for salvation, what should men do instead of blaspheme?
8 In the face of the truth and in the face of the pressing need for salvation, men today ought to orient themselves to the One Source of salvation by ceasing to blaspheme and by beginning to ascribe to the one true God the things that persuade us that he is the Source of our salvation and the One worthy of our heartfelt worship. For our guidance the inspired psalmist sings out: “Ascribe to Jehovah, O you families of the peoples, ascribe to Jehovah glory and strength. Ascribe to Jehovah the glory belonging to his name. Carry a gift and come into his courtyards. Bow down to Jehovah in holy adornment, be in severe pains because of him, all [you people of] the earth.”—Ps. 96:7-9, NW.
9. (a) For the people to make such ascriptions to Jehovah what service must first be rendered? (b) What is the greatest gift we can carry to him?
9 In order for the “families of the peoples” to be able to make such ascriptions to Jehovah there falls upon us his witnesses the service of making Jehovah and his purpose and his activities known to the people, of telling them about his name and all that it stands for, and of explaining to them his written Word and showing them how to worship this holy and strong and glorious God Jehovah. Inhabiter of the heavens and Creator of man, Jehovah is too great to dwell in earthly temples with courtyards made by man’s hands. By his spirit or invisible active force he dwells with his dedicated people, especially the remnant of Christ’s joint heirs, who form a living, spiritual temple. Accordingly, the greatest gift that a person can carry to Jehovah in loving appreciation and worship is the dedication of oneself to him through his royal High Priest Jesus Christ. By this gift show him you bow down to him in full submission as well as in adoration.
10. In what holy adornment must Jehovah be worshiped?
10 Such worship of Jehovah must be done in holy adornment. He cannot be worshiped in moral uncleanness. He cannot be worshiped by means of material or visual idols, to which a so-called relative worship is claimed to be given but which use of images makes one an unclean idolater in Jehovah’s sight. (Isa. 42:8, AS) He cannot be worshiped in adornment that was borrowed from pagan worship, under the self-deception that a religious system can appropriate and sanctify these appendages of demon worship to a sacred and evangelical use before the true God. No; but he must be worshiped in a spiritual adornment that testifies that one loves, worships and serves Jehovah as the only true God; also that one accepts his Son Jesus Christ as his now-reigning King and as the one High Priest who provided the ransom sacrifice to God to lift the divine condemnation from us and to free us from the power of sin and its penalty death; and, further, that one has accepted the privilege and responsibility of being a witness of Jehovah just as his Chief Son Jesus was.
11. How must the people be in severe pains because of Jehovah?
11 All of those who refuse to worship Jehovah thus in holy adornment will have reason to be in severe pains because of him. At the start of the great tribulation upon Satan’s organization in 1914 all such people felt merely the “beginning of pangs of distress,” the “beginning of birth-pangs,” because of the world war accompanied by the famines, the pestilences and the earthquakes of that time. (Matt. 24:8, NW; Ro) Then all the peoples trembled and were in severe pains, not because of connecting Jehovah God with those events, but because of the terribleness of the events themselves. But at the approaching “war of the great day of God the Almighty” all the peoples of the earth not dedicated to him but opposed to him will be in the severest of pains because of Jehovah. For they will have it forced upon their consciousness that the One whom they have defied is the One who is bringing this world-destroying tribulation upon them. He has commanded that then they must be in extreme pains. They will be.
THE RESCUE GOVERNMENT TO BE ANNOUNCED
12. Since Jehovah God was earth’s ruler in the time of Eden, why was a kingdom of God established in 1914?
12 At man’s creation in the paradise garden of Eden Jehovah God was the one Ruler of this earth as well as heaven. The rebellion that produced Satan the Devil brought forth a rival god and a rival claimant to the rulership of man and the earth. The global flood of Noah’s day proved that Jehovah is still the universal Sovereign and the earth is the footstool of his throne. Generations after the Flood Satan the rival ruler produced the first human kingdom at Babel or Babylon. But Jehovah had his own representative king on earth, Melchizedek. Long after this priestly king passed off the scene Jehovah God anointed David of Bethlehem to be king over Israel and seated him upon the “throne of Jehovah” at Jerusalem and began a long line of kings in David’s family. Before the last of that line of kings came in the person of Jesus Christ, God emptied the earthly “throne of Jehovah” of its king and overturned the capital city Jerusalem. There that typical visible kingdom on earth ended and Jehovah ceased to reign among men by an imperfect king of David’s line. But Jesus Christ taught us to pray for God’s kingdom to come to earth again and for the heavenly Father’s will to be done on earth the same as up in heaven. Jesus preached the good news of that coming kingdom and died for it. By resurrecting Jesus God restored him to life and seated him at his own right hand in heaven and commanded him to wait till the “appointed times of the nations” ended in 1914, at which time Jehovah would bring forth his kingdom and lay the executive power of it upon the shoulder of Jesus Christ.
13. What is the reason that it must be said among the nations: “Jehovah himself has become king”?
13 October 1, 1914, is now more than forty-two years ago and the Kingdom’s fight at Armageddon is fast nearing. There are still unknown numbers of people of good will to be brought into Jehovah’s provision of salvation. More than ever the time is here for action, for the message of the hour to be pealed forth. “Say among the nations: ‘Jehovah himself has become king. The productive land also becomes firmly established so that it cannot be made to totter. He will plead the cause of the peoples in uprightness.’ Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be joyful. Let the sea thunder and that which fills it. Let the open field exult and all that is in it. At the same time let all the trees of the forest break out joyfully before Jehovah. For he has come; for he has come to judge the earth. He will judge the productive land with righteousness and the peoples with his faithfulness.” (Ps. 96:10-13, NW) How grandly this command that rings from heaven by inspiration shows that the thing of leading importance is God’s kingdom by Christ, for it will settle forever the issue of universal sovereignty in Jehovah’s favor and will bring salvation to those who loyally stand up for his sovereignty!
14. Why are we instructed not to miss a day in telling the good news of salvation by God’s kingdom?
14 Jehovah’s established government is a cause for universal rejoicing. It is the kingdom of salvation for both heaven and earth. The salvation already begun by it is the good news that the witnesses are commanded to tell from day to day. We are instructed not to miss a day in telling it. Why? Because the days to tell it are limited before Armageddon, in fact, are getting fewer with each passing day. Not a single day dare we leave it out of mind, for the kingdom of salvation is the thing that Jesus said we should keep seeking first, together with righteousness from God. Of all times, why not seek it now when it is actually here? Every day brings opportunities to tell of the salvation that it has brought and will bring, that others may be impelled to seek the Kingdom too. It being the only rightful government of heaven and earth, the only one that will vindicate Jehovah’s universal sovereignty and save mankind, salvation by it is worth telling out to others who also need salvation. Owing to the oncoming destruction of this wicked system of things salvation by Jehovah’s means is something most timely to be told daily. It is the only “good news” today. If we rejoice daily in the Kingdom, if we feel like shouting Hallelujah! at the realization that it is ruling now in the midst of its enemies, we shall bubble over into talking of the salvation it brings. The telling of salvation by Jehovah is, in fact, a part of our worship of him, and we know we must render him worship every day. Tell it, then, from day to day. If we do not sing to Jehovah by telling it, we do not have the “joy of Jehovah.” Sharing in his joy is a stronghold to us.—Neh. 8:10, NW.
15. How must we tell this good news, and where and in what capacities?
15 The good news of salvation we must tell not only individually but also collectively, together with all other saved ones, in one grand unity. God’s love is so great that his salvation embraces, not just one, but many. It is a collective salvation in which many have a share, even a great crowd of “other sheep” today whom no man is yet able to number. We can tell this good news by our speaking mouth or by the speaking printed page. For preaching by the printed page the Watch Tower Society supplies us with Bibles, books and booklets explaining the Bible, the magazines The Watchtower and Awake! free tracts and public-lecture handbills. For telling the good news we are not limited to one place. We can daily tell it in our own homes to members of our family, in the doorways of other people by going from house to house, in public places aside from on the platform, even underground in totalitarian lands or in prisons and concentration and slave labor camps under dictatorships. In isolated places we can tell the good news, or as a member of a congregation large or small, that is, as a congregation publisher. Still better, one can tell it as a full-time pioneer publisher, even as a missionary in foreign lands. One may be privileged to tell it as a public speaker of a congregation, or as a zone servant in one of the ten zones into which the earth has been divided with many branch offices of the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society in each zone. The territory under each branch is divided up into districts and then subdivided into circuits, and each circuit contains a number of congregations of Jehovah’s witnesses. So some may be favored with telling the good news as district servants or circuit servants. Thus in many capacities the telling of the good news may be done, and each one should be faithful in his capacity.
16. (a) Is it necessary to be a full-time publisher to be commissioned to tell the good news? (b) Must we limit matters to telling it ourselves?
16 To be commissioned to tell the good news in the field and to tell it from day to day one does not need to be a publisher devoting his full time. Each and every one saved is commissioned by Jehovah to tell his salvation from day to day according to one’s opportunities. What results in more believers is not only to introduce the good news to neighbors and total strangers but also to offer to start Bible studies in the homes of the interested people, so as to study the good news there at least once a week. The thing to do is not only to tell it yourself but also to get others to tell it with force and effect. Our endeavor should be to train others to join us in telling it.
17. For what personal reason should we tell the good news, and why so even if forbidden by enemies of salvation?
17 What will happen if we tell the good news of Jehovah’s salvation the seven days of each week during the year 1957? Surely this: many more ears are going to be reached with the joyful sound; many ears, long deaf for never having heard, are going to be opened by the good news’ at last reaching them. Comfort is going to be brought to many sad hearts that, for a change, would like to hear a truly cheering song with a happy theme to counterbalance the mourning and the wailing today by all the nations at seeing the “sign of the Son of man” in the heavens. (Matt. 24:30) More persons of good will may thus be brought into the saved condition and more will be given theocratic training to sing and tell it out. As a blessed result of all this taking place before Armageddon, Jehovah God will become more widely known, more appreciated, believed in, accepted, worshiped, praised and served. Oh, how worthy he is of all this!
18, 19. Instead of telling the things of earth, sea and sky to disappear because of Jehovah’s coming, what does the psalmist tell them?
18 Tell out, then, the good news of salvation by him, because of what you know it has done for you. “Jehovah has done a great thing in what he has done with us. We have become joyful.” (Ps. 126:3, NW; Mark 5:19) Also, be willing, be prepared, be glad to bear all the self-expenditure that it takes to tell it out. What if the enemies of anybody’s salvation prefer to perish themselves and try to cause others to perish by telling us to keep quiet? We shall pay no attention to them. We are under a command higher than theirs to tell it out and we must and we will courageously obey the superior command. Not only are we, but also all of Jehovah’s creations in heaven and earth are called upon to express their irrepressible joy because he, the God of salvation, has come into his capital government as King and Judge. Therefore the heavens should be glad, the earth should be joyful, the sea should thunder with every thing in it, the open field and all its fullness should exult, and the trees of the forest should joyfully break out before Jehovah, now that he has come as King and Judge. For oh! how much good his coming promises!
19 Once we see that the great, fear-inspiring, dignity-bearing, splendid, strong and beautiful and glorious Jehovah has come to his temple for judgment accompanied by his majestic King Jesus Christ, all things in earth, sea and sky take on a hitherto undiscerned grandeur. For, under the thousand years of Christ’s reign, paradise is to be restored to earth and made globe-encircling. So, instead of telling the trees and the products of the field to shrivel up and the broad-bosomed seas to evaporate in steam because Jehovah has come to burn up the earth and the planets, suns and stars in the heavens, the inspired exulting psalmist tells earth, sea and sky and their fullness to take on the joyful appearance of things expecting deliverance and to break out in a soul-stirring harmony of sound.
20. How will earth, sea and sky no longer be profaned by men?
20 And for good reason! For no longer will the seas be marred by the ugly sight of atomic warships or nuclear submarines or be poisoned by fusion or fission bombs spraying radioactive particles over their waves or their charming islands and atolls. (Isa. 33:21-23, AS) No more will the earth’s atmosphere be profaned by murderous bombers and long-range guided missiles or be made noxious with injurious fallout of burning ash from atomic explosions. No more will the mountains be used as hiding places for secret airplane hangars or munitions factories or as the sources of minerals necessary for nuclear warfare. No more will the moon be viewed as a goal in space-travel, from which the first armaments-racing nation to reach it will be able to dominate all other nations. No more will the primeval forests be cut down to provide pulp for the newspapers and magazines that spread lying propaganda, sordid news, defiling cartoons and commercial materialism.
21. How will all earthly creation benefit from Jehovah’s coming to rule and judge?
21 Ah no! But all earthly creation will benefit from Jehovah’s coming to rule and judge. For, as he himself has promised, all those ruining the earth will themselves be ruined in Armageddon’s destruction and once again, as in the garden of God in Eden, all nature will have full sweep to express itself to the glory and praise of its splendorous Creator. As King and Judge of earth he is interested in the things he embedded in the earth and the things he planted in it and formed about it when he created this earth for man’s everlasting paradise home. He does not want all this misused by the selfish servants Or the Devil. He desires all of it to serve his honorable, life-giving purpose. What wonder, then, that even all unintelligent things in earth and heaven should be addressed and called upon to applaud, to roar, to thunder, to look their most beauteous!
22. If all such things should rejoice at his coming, how about us?
22 All such things have reason to be glad and rejoice in that their own Creator has become King and has come to his temple for liberating judgment work. But how about us? How much more should we speech-endowed, Bible-reading, intelligent living creatures sing to him, say that he has become king and tell the good news of his salvation!
23. How has the productive land been firmly established, and how does Jehovah judge it and its people?
23 As the Bible’s timetable and the events since 1914 in fulfillment of prophecy prove, Jehovah with his Angel of the Covenant, Jesus Christ, has been at his spiritual temple for this needed judgment since the spring of 1918. The land or earthly condition of his New World society of witnesses has become a productive land that will never be made to totter to destruction but will ever bring forth the fruitage of righteousness under his loving blessing. It has been firmly established as the basis for the “new earth” of the righteous new world. This “land” Jehovah judges favorably. He vindicates it as the habitation of his faithful witnesses and he condemns Gog of Magog and all other attackers of this theocratic land. The inhabitants of this “land” he judges with his faithfulness, and he pleads the cause of the remnant of his Kingdom heirs and the cause of their good-will co-dwellers, the “other sheep” of the King Jesus Christ.
24. How does he judge the peoples with his faithfulness?
24 Behold what he has already done from his judgment throne for his name people on earth! How faithful he has been to them according to the terms of his irrevocable covenant, the Abrahamic covenant for the blessing of all the families and nations of the earth! How true and faithful he has been to his written Word the Bible, to his perfect laws and his irreproachable principles and, yes, to Himself! By his Associate Judge, Jesus Christ, he is separating the peoples of all the nations as anti-Kingdom goats and as pro-Kingdom sheep. Judgment he will execute at the great war of vindication and liberation. The tremendous flocks of goats will be consumed in the fiery expression of his judgment, but the peaceable, united flock of sheep will be pronounced innocent and be ushered alive into the earthly realm of the kingdom of his Son Jesus Christ.—Matt. 25:31-46.
25. Who have a song to sing, and what should we do because of the excellency of that song?
25 Beholding all this, how can we stay mute, when the divine command is to sing, to sing to Jehovah? If the heavenly sons of God and the celestial morning stars had a song at God’s laying of the foundation of his footstool the earth—if the multitude of the heavenly host had a song of praise to God at the birth of the Son of God who was to become earth’s everlasting King—yes, if anyone now has a song, if anyone ever had a song, we witnesses of Jehovah today have a song! Yes, we have a song, a “new song,” the like of which never before floated melodiously throughout the inhabited earth. Our song has the latest, the newest theme. Our rhapsody of Bible melody has become the song hit among increasing thousands of people of good will regardless of their nationality and language. Its composer is the happy God Jehovah, who inspired it by his holy spirit. His Song Director for us is his royal Son, Jesus Christ. Do not withhold your voice, then. Under him join the swelling chorus all over the earth. Sing, sing for joy, in entrancing harmony with all the New World society. Unitedly, unceasingly, tell out the good news of salvation by Jehovah God from day to day.